Resistance through culture (also called cultural resistance, resistance through the aesthetic,[1] or intellectual resistance)[2] is a form of
nonconformism. It is not
open dissent, but a discreet stance.[3]
A revolt "so well hidden that it seems nonexistent",[4] it is a quest "to extend the boundaries of official tolerance, either by adopting a line considered by authorities to be ideologically suspect, or by highlighting certain contemporary social problems, or both."[3] Criticized for being "utopian, and thus inadequate to the realities of that age",[5] during the time of the
Communist regimes in Europe, it was also a surviving formula, a modality for writers and artists to cheat Communist censorship without going the whole way into open political opposition.[6][7]
Romania
One of the most sharply criticized phrases in
post-revolutionary Romania,[8] considered to be not much more than "blowing in the wind" by Romanian-born German
Nobel literature prize winner
Herta Müller,[9] and "not only resignation [...] but complicity with the terrorist communism" by Romanian exiled writer
Paul Goma,[10] so-called "resistance through culture" has often been linked to
Constantin Noica's so-called "Păltiniș School".[11]
In the fine arts,
Corneliu Baba, among others, is sometimes considered to be an example of a painter who was nonconformist in this way.[12]
^
abMcDermott, Kevin; Stibe, Matthew (eds.). Revolution and Resistance in Eastern Europe: Challenges to Communist Rule. Oxford, New York: Berg. pp. 90, 91.
ISBN978-1-84520-258-3.
^Bradatan, Costica; Oushakine, Serguei Alex., eds. (2010). In Marx's Shadow: Knowledge, Power and Intellectuals in Eastern Europe and Russia. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books. p. 54.
ISBN978-0-7391-3624-9.
^Cesereanu, Ruxandra (2005).
"Memorie si exil" (in Romanian). romaniaculturala.ro. Archived from
the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 10 Aug 2015.
^Copoeru, Ion; Sepp, Hans Rainer, eds. (2007). Phenomenology 2005: Selected Essays from the Euro-Mediterranean Area, Part 1. Zeta Books. p. 74.
^Behring, Eva; Brandt, Juliane; Dozsai, Monika; Kliems, Alfrun; Richter, Ludwig; Trepte, Hans-Christian (2004). Grundbegriffe und Autoren ostmitteleuropäischen Exilliteraturen 1945-1989 Ein Beitrag zur Systematisierung und Typologisierung (in German). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. p. 641.